Oh those pictures are so precious! It is fun to be a kid for a day again. *sigh*

I felt like a kid too and its great because I haven't been feeling well lately.
And after the last couple years and then losing all the weight, I've really felt a LOT younger lately and more willing to try new things. I've just felt like I enjoy life a lot more now after going though such a hard time with my health prior to my weight loss surgery and the weight loss itself.
And I think despite the problems, the move was good for us and its made me a lot happier. It's been almost a year since I lost my good friend to cancer at 39 and I just have learned from him that life is short and enjoy it where you can and I've also discovered that you can find fun and joy almost anywhere and you don't have to pay a lot for it either.
Anyway, I didn't mean to ramble on, but after almost 45 years, I just finally feel at peace and content with life right now and better able to handle the obstacles than ever before.

Veejer: we were sledding in a tub my husband uses to mix mortar in for construction. We threw a towel in it (he washes it out after using it, but still) and took off.

Yes, I did throw snowballs and he would chase them and get to them and sniff it and look at me like WTH? Then come bounding back for more. He was not real impressed with the snowballs once he discovered "kick the snow so I can jump at it"

So true. When I think back on my best memories, they usually involve good times that were simple, not planned and usually didn't cost anything. It's amazing how that works huh?

There is a lot to be said for spontinaity. I have a friend that can not do ANYTHING spontaneously. Everything HAS to be planned out days or weeks in advance. I could NOT live like that. Yeah, i'm a planner, but I can also drop everything at a moments notice and go sledding in the backyard or something equally as fun and "for the moment". And those are usually way more fun anyway.

ETA: in fact, I am one of those people that you don't muse outloud about doing something because I will grab it and say: "yeah, let's go do that RIGHT NOW!" and we do and usually have a great time.

myrosiedog: I'm not trying to spoil your fun. But do you have any trees downwind from the top of your hill? Your house is pretty close too. Just because I'm safety conscious and don't want you to get injured, please wear a bike helmet when you sled. We have several deaths a year because of said activities. Either that, or learn how to tip over very quickly if you wish to take up this sport earnestly in the future.

myrosiedog: I'm not trying to spoil your fun. But do you have any trees downwind from the top of your hill? Your house is pretty close too. Just because I'm safety conscious and don't want you to get injured, please wear a bike helmet when you sled. We have several deaths a year because of said activities. Either that, or learn how to tip over very quickly if you wish to take up this sport earnestly in the future.

Warning... a bright salad bowl helmet is not effective.

No trees near where we sledded. Our hill is not that big, so we didn't pick up a lot of speed and it levels out at the bottom, so before we got to the wall of the neighbors house, we had slowed and stopped. We just had fun on our little hill because, well it was there and we didn't have to go anywhere, but it wasn't a huge enough hill to get any real momentum going. Just enough to have fun.
We did have the sense to move away from the chain link fence tho.

We used to have an awsome hill in our back yard in Ohio and all the neighbor kids came to sled. We had a rail fence at the bottom of the hill that had to be repaired every spring because someone would go crashing through it. Lucky it was there, though, because beyond that was an even steeper hill of thick woods. Good times.

myrosiedog: I'm not trying to spoil your fun. But do you have any trees downwind from the top of your hill? Your house is pretty close too. Just because I'm safety conscious and don't want you to get injured, please wear a bike helmet when you sled. We have several deaths a year because of said activities. Either that, or learn how to tip over very quickly if you wish to take up this sport earnestly in the future.

Warning... a bright salad bowl helmet is not effective.

I'm not trying to make you seem paranoid, but I live on a very steep hill, with hundreds of trees and rocks at the bottom. I have lived here my whole life, and this will be my 10th year sledding down said hill. I have had at least a dozen friends over, my mother has had whole Girl Scout troops of 15 over to use it, and out neighbors bring friends over almost every weekend. It is the perfect hill.

In the 10 years that I have sledded on it, no one has gotten injured on it, scared, yes, but never anything worse.

And at my old school, there is a 50-foot hill that leads to the football fields below. In the 50 years that the feilds have been around, only 1 person has been hurt, and I witnessed it, heard his nose snap. It was because his 'best friend' thought that it would be funny to push him out into a concrete barrier, not realizing that concrete isn't exactly the softest material. However, Matt lived, and continues to film, in hopes of getting onto Jackass, on weekends.

At my current school, there is a hill less than 1/2 a mile away. It has 2 drops on it, one of them being a full 90° for part of it. Hundreds of people use this hill every weekend. Even though it is fairly icy at all times, no one has even gotten more than a mild ice burn off of it.

So, what I'm saying is, I think that if people are dying, it's becuase they are doing stupid things, and just weeding themselves out of the over-cowded gene pool, doing all of us a favor.

Well, devil's advocate here. In high school some friends of mine were on a toboggan at the local sledding spot (nobody wore helmets for anything back then). They hit a tree and all ended up in the hospital with severe head injuries. You definitely have to learn how to bail out.

Keeping in mind that my reflexes are about as sharp as a dead cat, there's plenty of time to bail.

I also recommend not doubling or tripling up in a tobaggan, it just makes it harder to bail, becuase if you're near the back, you can't see, and it takes a moment to process that the people ahead of you jumped out, there must be something wrong ahead.